Only Radiation Therapy for Lung Cancer

3 Answers from the Community

Typically SBRT would be used for early stage LC or now Proton therapy is being used in more advance stage treatments along with many other choices in Radiation modality.
if a person is healthy enough chemo is perscribed at the same time because it helps the radiation work and do its job and it help kill off loose cells that may have escaped the tumor.

What is SBRT? I am being treated by IMRT for stage T1b with one lymph in way infected. I was told that due to the ipoor kidny condition, only RT is the only option. Yet, I am not able to trace records of previous RT treatment. I appreciate any input to my query!

SBRT is Stereotactic Radiation Therapy it is often used for patients in early stage lung cancer who cannot have surgery due to other chronic illness's they may have such as cardiac issues or poor pulmonary function ect... that would not allow their bodies to withstand the surgery or leave them with a possible poor quality of life it they did have the surgery. There are some patients who do not wish to have surgery due to the invasiveness of the procedure and prefer to have SBRT because it has less side effects and their bodies are not being cut on. SBRT results are often as good as surgery results and in some recent research studies SBRT is surpassing surgery as a standard because results are showing as good and sometimes better outcomes for SBRT patients than those who had surgery. There are times when a patient may be a higher stage lung cancer and is too ill for their body to tolerate the side effects that chemotherapy can often have. Some of those patient may be offered radiation treatment (general or IMRT(radiation that is 3D)) to decrease the size of the tumor often resulting in the patient having a better quality of life for however long they may survive.